Crab Traps to Tourist Trap

Last night on the Discovery Channel there was a Deadliest Catch wrap-up-type episode where Mike Rowe had all the assorted captains gathered at the Lockspot in Ballard for some "why do you do it?" commiseration. It's like in their blood or something. There was no satisfactory answer, actually. Seattlest can understand why people fish crab up in Alaska. You can get hurt, sure, but you make some money and you don't have to put up with a lot of other people. Why do the Deadliest Catch guys do it, though? There's definitely a Heisenburg thing going on with the main characters of this show--for some reason the Seattle tubes are more or less vacant of any mention of the Deadliest Catch, but the show's near 24-hour domination of the Discovery Channel suggests that it is, in fact, wildly popular. These Captains and crew are reality TV stars. Not the kind of MTV/Fox stars who change careers to making pro bar appearances five nights a week after they get voted off the island, but reality TV stars nonetheless. If you could chose between somehow parlaying that reality TV stardom into some cash or continuing on in the world's most dangerous profession, well, you'd step to parlaying.

And despite all the "it's in our blood" generational ramblings of Sig et all that were on display last night, they are parlaying. Sig, Larry, Phil and Rick are retiring a crabbing boat and taking it up to Alaska where it will greet with baited traps the tourists hauled north from Seattle by cruise ships.

From the Alaska Journal of Commerce:

Instead of risking life and limb to harvest crab on the Bering Sea, Hendricks, his business partners and other crab captains will be greeting visitors to Alaska aboard a remodeled Sea Star, complete with a retail store selling everything from notebooks to calculators and pens, all brand-name merchandising with “The Deadliest Catch” logo, he said during a telephone interview from Seattle.

Tourism statistics point to some 850,000 to 950,000 cruise ship visitors from May to September each year, he said.

And when the cruise ship season folds in September, the partners are considering taking their vessel south to the Seattle waterfront or even to San Diego for the winter months, he said.